$40 million pharmacy center coming to La Grange

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A new $40 million pharmacy center is coming to La Grange.

Baptist Health announced the new facility Thursday, which will be located behind the hospital on Moody Lane. The center will serve patients across Baptist Health’s nine hospitals in Kentucky and southern Indiana.

Baptist expects the project will create more than 200 new jobs by the time it's complete.

"What we're trying to do here in the county is create long-lasting, sustainable jobs," La Grange Mayor John Black said. "If we can do that, we can keep these young, bright students that are coming out of Oldham County High School (and) we can bring them back to La Grange, Kentucky, to get a pharmacy job, a pharmaceutical pharmacy tech job. That's what we're lacking.."

The project is expected to break ground in December and be completed by 2024.

"That would just be a testament that we’re trying to build a biomedical campus in LaGrange, Oldham County, and this is possibly just the beginning of it," La Grange Mayor John Black said.

It was also announced that new exit ramps would be built on I-71 near mile marker 20. Mayor Black says construction is scheduled to begin this fall.

"The contracts been rewarded, and we’re gonna have a nice new set of ramps feeding into our business park, the Baptist Health campus, all that general area right there," Black said.

The business park, Oldham Reserve, has a few businesses, but has acres ready for development. Black hopes with the new pharmacy center that more high-paying, sustainable jobs will attract young Oldham County students back home to work.

"Trying to create positions that kids who grow up in this county," Black said. "And we want to keep them in the Oldham County by creating 75 pharmaceutical jobs, 75 pharm tech jobs, things like that in high-paying positions."